Pope: Church committed to Christian-Jewish reconciliation (Extra)

May 12, 2009, 9:18 GMT

Jerusalem - The Catholic Church is 'irrevocably committed' to 'genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews,' Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday as he met Israel's two chief rabbis.

The pontiff's statement came during a trip which has been fraught with diplomatic tensions, in the light of the Catholic church's disputed actions during the Nazi era, and Benedict's own decision to readmit a Holocaust-denying bishop into the church.

'As the Declaration Nostra Aetate makes clear, the Church continues to value the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and desires an ever deeper mutual understanding and respect through biblical and theological studies as well as fraternal dialogues,' the pontiff said at the meeting in Jerusalem.

Nostra Aetate, Latin for 'in our time,' was adopted by the Second Vatican Council on October 28, 1965, and called on Catholics and Jews to engage in friendly dialogue and biblical and theological discussions to better understand each other's faith.

The document is seen as having revolutionized Jewish-Catholic relations and paving the way for the eventual Vatican recognition of the state of Israel in 1993.

In his brief speech, Benedict praised the work of the Catholic-Jewish bilateral commission, and 'the willingness of the delegates to discuss openly and patiently not only points of agreement, but also points of difference.'

The pontiff met the two chief rabbis immediately after he visited the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site. He had begun Tuesday, the second day of a five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, with a visit to the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound, and a meeting with Jerusalem's Grand Mufti.

The pope was also due Tuesday to visit the tradition site of the Last Supper, and in the late afternoon to hold a mass for thousands of worshippers in the Garden of Gethsemane.